Wednesday, 09 May 2012

Another lemon slice?! Perhaps we need to ask: can you have too many lemon slices in your life?For me it's a bit like the Brownie, I just have to KEEP MAKING versions of it, till I get the perfect one. I think I'm close, but I have one more in me (after this one.)

This one is pretty close to the first one I blogged, but with the distinct advantage of being on a lemon shortbread base. I was pretty happy with that. I also didn't add zest to the top, the base was zesty enough and the top was so prettily lemony I didn't want the bitterness of zest.

I've never made condensed milk, although Rhonda does and it looks straight forward. I'm always making a slice at 9am on a Wednesday and I need to be out the door with it at 10. I'm all about speed. One week I'll make condensed milk the night before in a fit of pre-planning and without a doubt my head will explode with the co-ordinated from-scratch perky puritan-ness of it all and that could be messy.

Meanwhile, we have another lemon slice. Not quite perfect, but sweet and ideally balanced on a saucer next to a pretty cup of tea.

INGREDIENTS:Shortbread base:

165g butter (cold)

⅔ cup icing sugar

1 cup plain flour

⅔ cup rice flour

1 egg yolk

Zest of one lemon

Ideally in a food processor (it'll take less than a minute), put in all your ingredients and whizz till combined. Otherwise rub the butter into the sugar and flours then make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk. Knead till combined. And put a food processor on your Christmas list. Roll out and press into base of a standard size slice tin (approx 20cm x 30cm). Bake in moderate oven (180deg) for approx 15 mins or until golden. Allow to cool.

Lemon top:

395g tin condensed milk

1 egg

¼ cup lemon juice

2 tbsp self-raising flour

Mix all ingredients well in a bowl, then pour over base. Bake in moderate oven (180deg) for approx 15 mins or until set.

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

My Armageddon slice, because who knew I still had butter and sugar!? (This was the end of the white sugar stash.)

It even involved a cheat. Flour. I had 5kg of gorgeous white bakers flour left over from Bikkie baking for the last two days and I brought it home with me. I know, dreadfully naughty. I even have a flour-for-sourdough-and-eggs trade lined up for the end of the week but I cheated. And also made two enormous loaves of fluffy white bread today with it which the kids ate like it was cake, spread with butter in big slabs.

I'm unrepentent. And we're at day 24.

So this slice was making use of a bag of chopped peanuts I had stashed, I think with this slice in mind, and only just past their due-by date.

I love peanut brittle, and I thought this might just work.

You know, it didn't not work, it's peanut brittle on a slice base. What's not to like? I even had the sense to score it before it hardened, so we have kind of even pieces.

Honestly though, I think make the brittle, and make a different slice. The top doesn't really stick on the base so well, and the processed chopped peanuts tasted funny. I hope this whole wholesome food escapade hasn't wrecked convenience food for me for ever. Not that I ever intend to buy bagged up chopped peanuts again. Whole nuts would have been tastier.

So you know what? I'm not even going to suggest you waste your time with this particular recipe except to say the base was inoffensive and would serve well under pretty much any slice: just 1 cup flour + half cup brown sugar + 125g melted butter. And the brittle was delicious: I boiled 2 cups of white sugar + 1 cup of water for about 15 minutes until it changed from clear to golden then quickly stirred in 75g of chopped butter. I poured it over the dreadful nuts spread on the cooled slice base, and voila, rock-hard peanut brittle about 10 minutes later.

Now if I only had some white sugar and delicious fresh nuts I'd be back in the kitchen!!

Dinner tonight was left over rooster soup poured over the top of two finely diced and cooked onions, with three cups of rice stirred in and some fresh herbs. Lid on, risotto fifteen minutes later. It didn't have the lovely slick consistency of proper risotto, but it's wasn't bad! And the leftovers will make tasty rice balls tomorrow.

If you are sitting down with a book or a movie, do you ever eat peanut brittle? What's your sweet treat?

Wednesday, 14 March 2012

This is not a fancy slice. Or a tricky one. It doesn't photograph particularly well and looks much the same on your friend's beaten up old chopping board as on a pretty plate.

Because this one is not about appearances.

It's the go-to. The old-school. The one your eyes follow if someone carries it into morning tea. The one that sells out first at the fete.

I'm sure you've made it before, you probably even have the recipe handwritten in an exercise book in your fourteen-year-old handwriting.

If you ever lose that book, you know you can come back here and find it.

(Better still, commit it to memory. Really. A slice like this is important, I'm sure you'll agree.)

I'm sharing my Mum's kitchen at the moment, which means I might at any time stumble across heirlooms like this: the tin I cooked my very first slice in.

It's so beaten up, it's made so many countless slices, it's so awesome.

I made a grave error of timing with this one though: it was not at all set when I needed to leave to take it to a friend's place.

I covered it with foil and put it on the passenger's seat and it still wasn't set when I arrived a full four minutes later. Darnit.

I stuck it in her freezer and pulled it out forty-five minutes and two cups of tea and about sixteen serious belly laughs later.

Did not look so pretty.

But really, as I said at the beginning, no one cares what this one looks like. It's chocolate caramel slice, a happy-dance in a mouthful.

Choc Caramel Slice

Base:

1 cup plain flour

Half cup coconut

Half cup brown sugar

125g butter, melted

Method:

Melt the butter and stir in all the other base ingredients. Press into a slice tin (approx 18 x 28cm) and bake for 15 mins on 180deg C.

Caramel:

1 tin condensed milk

60g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

Method:

Stir all caramel ingredients together in a saucepan over a low heat until butter is melted and ingredients are amalgamated. Keep stirring for about 6 minutes or until the caramel changes colour to golden. Pour/spread over base and bake for 8 minutes on 180deg C.

When the caramel had cooked and cooled slightly, spread with a melted 200g block of milk or dark chocolate. Allow at least 2 hours to set in the fridge, but heck, the freezer for 45 mins worked for me.

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

I would not ever have thought of making this slice if my Mum had not come out before we set off blackberrying on Saturday and asked me if I remembered the recipe to Mars Bar Slice. I did, although I had not made it for, no exaggeration, about twenty five years. Eek.

Not trusting my decrepit memory she went off to google it, techno whizz that she is, and when we came back a couple of hours later, there was Mars Bar slice to have with tea.

If you ask me, it's not a particularly economical slice to make, and most slices kinda are. Really, slices are more your budget end of sweet treats, aren't they? Isn't that why we love them so much? (That, and the delicious slickness of slicing into a slice. Love that.)

You've got your box of rice bubbles, which we don't keep in stock in this pantry of ours, plus Mars Bars - four of them. How long since you bought a Mars Bar? I found myself a little shocked at inflation and looked to see if I also had tuckshop arms about now. Really, I must have turned into my grandmother already.

But if you can get over the shock of paying almost eight dollars in confectionary this is a super easy and fast fast fast slice to make, and what is not to love. Melt down the bars and the butter, stir into the rice bubbles and it sets in the pan on the bench in under an hour.

Top with some completely unnecessary chocolate and some unspeakably unnecessary white chocolate squiggles and there you have it. Boxed and at the back of the cupboard for a quick deportation to morning tea.

MARS BAR SLICE

There are a hundred variations on this recipe, and I think when Mum made it on the weekend she used just 90g melted butter, 3 bars and 3 cups of rice bubbles. This lends itself to better bubble coverage and an overall chewier slice. I've made it the way I remember it.

Ingredients

4 x 53g Mars Bars

125g butter, melted

4 x cups rice bubbles

Method

Put the bars and the butter in a saucepan over a low heat and stir till melted and combined.

Stir through the rice bubbles and press down into a standard slice tin (18cm x 28cm). Put aside to set.

Wednesday, 08 February 2012

I made blackberry jam today. We've found a bunch of brambles round here, all covered with luscious fruit. Super cool. And free! I've never made blackberry jam so I followed the usual rules re: weight of fruit and sugar and a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice. I let it boil and froth for five minutes and took my pre-cooled saucer out of the freezer to do the 'wrinkle' text on and it didn't 'wrinkle'.

Am so not a jam expert.

I let it keep boiling, tested again, still not 'wrinkling'. (Whatever the heck that means.) Took it off after fifteen minutes and unsurprisingly it has set too hard. Crapola.

Oh well, it has other uses.

First, it took me straight back to my Grandma's kitchen. I don't even precisly remember her making blackberry jam but oh my goodness the smell of that jam on the stove! Ka-bam!

We went blackberrying every year when we were kids. Not on the farm, the brambles were all sprayed and under control, but around the cemetery, up and down the roads. Mum and Dad both remember blackberrying with a plank that allowed you to get right in the middle of the bushes. Long sleeves, always.

I have a coffee date later this week which I've just converted to a blackberrying date. I need to try the jam again. And how much more fun is bramble surfing?!

Meanwhile, I used it in a slice.

Chocolate and blackberry jam slice

(This would work with any kind of berry jam, blackberry is just nice and waxy and tart. Goes well with chocolate.)

Base:

125g butter, melted

1 cup self-raising flour

half cup dessicated coconut

half cup brown sugar

Mix all the base ingredients together and press into a greased, floured and paper-lined shallow slice tin (18cm x 28cm). Bake for 12 mins on 180degC.

When cooked and cooled, spread with jam.

Melt approx a cup of chocolate buttons, or 150g chopped dark chocolate. Spread over jam and allow to set.

We're pulling up stakes on our rented acre, and moving down to the family farm. It's timely and exciting, we're building up our farm business, all our animals are there, and we're making a crazy number of trips across town every day at present.

We promised ourselves this would be a year of adventure.

One month down, eleven to go.

How is your February panning out? Been blackberrying this year? Does this slice look easy? It IS!!! And can anyone explain what I'm looking for on my saucer? No jammy wrinkles here.

Wednesday, 01 February 2012

D'you know, my very first post, in May 2009, was a muesli bar recipe. In fact, this one. It was before I'd thought about actually including photos of the food, and unless you are either of my two sisters you probably never read it.

So I'm posting it again.

There's something else about these little bars: before there was Buena Vista Farm Bikkies there was Grub Organics. I never actually got to retail stage, but I put way more time into the recipe testing phase than I ever did with the Bikkies. It was a little organics snackfood company for kids that I was building with my friend Anita, and my muesli bars were probably the product I was most proud of. I make a mean muesli bar. It has to be hard, solid, seedy, not too sweet, a bit chewy, and have lots of toasted oats.

What I love about this one is that it's very flexible, depending what is in your cupboard. The original recipe on my recipe index has wheatgerm (which I'm out of today) and pepitas (also out.) Just sub in whatever you like. Chuck in apricots. Dates. Swap out the quinoa for rolled barley or whatever you have.

Muesli Bar

Ingredients:

1 cup oats

½ cup sunflower kernals

½ cup linseed

1 cup quinoa flakes

½ cup sesame seeds

1 cup sultanas

½ cup dried cranberries

125g butter, melted

½ cup honey

OK. Grease and line with baking paper a 3cm deep 16x28cm tin. A slice tin. Or really, whatever size you've got that's not in the dishwasher.

Cook the oats, quinoa flakes, sunflower kernals and linseed in a frying pan over a medium heat, stirring until golden or you start to lose your sense of humour about it.

Transfer to a bowl. Put it somewhere to cool where the baby won't tip it over her head. Stir in sultanas and cranberries.

Cook butter and honey in a small saucepan over medium heat for a few minutes. No, your stirring arm should not be fatigued yet. Bring to boil and reduce heat to low. Simmer, without stirring, for a few minutes until the mixture is really golden. Let's say bronzed. Add to dry ingredients and stir until combined.

Spoon into your pan and use a large metal spoon to press down firmly. Cool and cut into bars. If you store it in a foil lined container they'll be good for seven days. Good luck keeping them in the cupboard that long. Now insist someone else do the washing up. You did the cooking and it's a very tasty, healthy snack. You gave birth AND you just made something with sunflower kernals in it. You are awesome.

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

My mouth is watering just flicking through the photos. My fingers are itching to go get a piece out of the fridge. And you know what, I CAN'T. Because I had the foresight to give the entire thing away after sampling one (OK, two) pieces, (yes OK maybe two and an edgy bit) and knowing that unless it was in someone else's fridge I was bound to nibble at least another three pieces while writing a rhapsodising post about it.

I made it up, so this sounds totally egotistical, really.

Am so besotted with my own slice I might give it it's own webpage.

It's the combination of roasted, salted peanuts, dark chocolate and chocolate digestive biscuits. It's just a hedgehog-y thing, you've seen them before.

But you HAVE to try this. Then seriously, give it to the canteen ladies or something, because if you have the self control to just nibble a tiny peice at a time, you deserve to be canonised.

Hedgehog

(You may notice that from a girl constantly banging on about 'from scratch' that there's a lot of not from-scratch ingredients here. Bought bikkies. Condensed milk. Pre-salted and roasted nuts. It just means it takes approximately four minutes to make this way.)

100g butter

100g dark chocolate

1 tin (395g) condensed milk

⅓ cup cocoa

200g packet chocolate digestive biscuits, chopped

1 cup salted and roasted peanuts

Ganache for the top:

50g butter

100g dark chocolate

In a saucepan melt the butter, chocolate and the condensed milk together until they are smooth and amalgamated. Add the cocoa, the chopped up biscuits and the nuts. Combine well then press into a greased and lined slice tin (I think mine is 13cm x 27cm). Stick in fridge for 1-2 hours or until firm.

To make the ganache just stir the butter and chocolate over a low heatfor a couple of minutes until melted then spread over the cold slice. Set (again) in fridge for 1-2 hours until hard.

Sprinkle with cocoa to serve.

Cuts into about 12 or in my case two and an edgy bit then into a container and out the door before I find myself eating the whole thing.

Oh chocolatey biscuity peanuty slice.

How I love you. I miss you. And without you I am a lesser person (hopefully, say, two to three kilograms lesser.)

Wednesday, 14 December 2011

You know you're a bit saturated in northern hemisphere culture when your Australian kids ask whether it really is Christmas time, like, where's the snow?

We don't do fake snow on the trees or windows over here. We embrace a warm Christmas and a cool seafood lunch.

More on Christmas traditions another day, I want to give you this White Christmas before it becomes a slice of Thursday. (By the way, chicken processing all went very well thank you, it was quick and interesting and the birds look wonderful. We had one roasted with lemon and garlic and thyme last night and it was nearly 4kg - a big bird - and delicious. But a 3.30am start and working all day yesterday and today in the commercial kitchen baking for a big market this weekend: I'm a bit cactus.)

Not Quite White Christmas

440g white chocolate (I just used 2 x 220g blocks), melted

1 cup rice bubbles

1 cup dried cranberries

1 cup (100g) slivered almonds

½ cup of shredded coconut

Melt the chocolate in a big bowl (I did this in the microwave) and stir all the other ingredients in together.

Press into a slice tin and chill in the fridge for about half an hour until firm.

SO QUICK.

It takes precisely 2 minutes to make this and doesn't even need cooking.

It's festive and simple and would look sweet stacked and wrapped in cellophane as a gift.

My main challenge is hanging onto it until tomorrow night when my usual slice of Wednesday girls are getting together! (And staying awake until then.)

Have you had a good Wednesday? Is the run up to Christmas fun for you or if one more person asks you if you've finished your Christmas shopping are you going to poke them?

Wednesday, 23 November 2011

This above, is not what it seems. At all. It is verifiably 100% sugar-free. Oh yes. I was so proud of myself, mixing up (a made up recipe) butter, peanuts, shredded coconut, organic raw cacao nibs and cocoa, almond meal and unhulled tahini. I thought, this might just work. A sugar-free slice.

Then I served it to friends today.

ONE out of the eight that tried it actually got through one whole tiny piece. The others I relented and after one brave exploratory bite, it went in the bin.

One dearly loved friend said, and I quote, I just can't believe it tastes so bad.

Shame, hey?

Today was tough on the withdrawal front. I felt pretty dreadful. Headachy, centre of back pain, really fuzzy, just like I'd given up coffee. It hit me by surprise because I thought I'd been sailing through and then suddenly, whammo.

I ran into a nutritionist friend at school pickup who kindly said I'd feel better in two to three days and to keep going, great work. Two to three days?!? Far out.

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Adam does not have a sweet tooth in his head. (Pass him the olives and the fetta any time of day.)

But some weeks he'll look up from the laptop and say, just ever so slightly folornly, that slice looked nice.

Because mostly it's made, photographed and out the door before he's even sniffed it.

Not this one. Not because he's marvellous or because I think he'll particularly love this one, but because I whipped it together at 9am this morning and was pressing it into the pan at 9.15am when I needed to be walking out the door with it at 9.45am.

This slice takes longer than half an hour to properly firm up. Just so you know.

(I took Buena Vista Farm Biscotti instead.)

Suddenly there is a slice in the fridge.

This is not, for me, a particularly good idea and I think I'll carry it to a neighbour tomorrow. Less a piece or two for Adam.

It's a lemony slice. I scribbled down a similar lime slice recipe from an old Better Homes and Garden's magazine as I sat with Henry at the Ear, Nose, Throat surgeon last week. I don't have limes on a tree though. It's another super quick one, with ingredients you can keep on hand for emergencies.

(This is the endy bit which is usually the only bit Adman ever sees of a slice.)

Lemony Slice

INGREDIENTS

200g white chocolate

395g tin of condensed milk

250g packet Nice (or sweet) biscuits, crushed

1 cup flaked almonds

1 cup shredded coconut

zest and juice of 2 lemons

METHOD

Gently heat the chocolate and the condensed milk together in a big saucepan on the slove, stirring constantly, until the chocolate melts.

Into this mix stir the crushed biscuits, the almonds, coconut and lemon juice and zest. Mix well.

Press into a greased, floured and paper-lined standard slice tin (approx 13 cm x 27 cm) and chill in fridge for at least an hour until firm.

It's sweet and sticky and lemony and coconutty and altogether marvellous.

Sorry Adman, this one's leaving the house first thing in the morning. That or I'm going to be up a dress size by the weekend.